


The Thing About Charlie Edwards

by wanderlustlover



Series: Hawaii Five-0 Season Six Meta [1]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Gen, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-02
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-04-29 14:13:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5130614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderlustlover/pseuds/wanderlustlover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I’ve had a lot of Charlie thoughts since about three months before the Charlie reveal, when I was informed about the Charlie reveal coming. When the reveal came out I said I was going to try and hold my opinions until we saw if they did any of the amazing story work they could have done with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Thing About Charlie Edwards

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alemara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alemara/gifts).



> I’ve had a lot of Charlie thoughts since about three months before the Charlie reveal, when I was informed about the Charlie reveal coming. When the reveal came out I said I was going to try and hold my opinions until we saw if they did any of the amazing story work they could have done with it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about it since the moment I squinted at the sneak peek where Danny and Steve were tromping and Danny was talking about Charlie knowing Danny was his dad, even though we’ve never once been given the implication that happened previously. 

Plus, since then, Laura (Alemara) and I have been writing the ‘our world’ coda to it and a lot of the things in my head have been seriously stirred up. Because everything about this plot being multifaceted and needed to work through is being swept under the rug. 

~*~

 **I. Rachel Edwards**  
Rachel should be on the outs with everyone right now. She didn’t just lie to Danny for four years, she lied to her husband, her daughter, and her son through all those four years, too. The kind of lie that can demolish marriages and families. 

**II. Stan Edwards**  
The fallout here would be epic. Remember how crushed Danny was about Rachel leaving him and it not being his baby when he only thought it was for a few days? Stan thought that was his son for four and half years. He’s now out a son, who he loves and was already dangerously ill, likely being carefully cared for, to the same person he has to share his step-daughter with and has absolutely no reason to trust his wife. 

That even when she came back to him four years ago, ‘pregrant with his son,’ it had nothing to do with him at all, and everything to do with making him an accessory and victim of her lies. This is man who should be utterly crushed, furious and adrift right now, too. 

(And if your response is “Good,” just don’t check in here, okay?  
No one in the world deserves this to be done to them. No one.)

 **III. Grace Williams**  
Is easily the person who would find herself a little out in the cold during this time. Not because everyone doesn’t adore her the same as ever, but because everything is coming up Charlie right now. Charlie is/was sick and needed more of everyone’s attention because of that. 

Then, her Mom had to come clean about Charlie to her, Step-Stan, and Danno to save Charlie. Which enters, Grace never had a half brother, she always had a full brother, and now, for the first time in her life, she has to share Danny. Without any warning. All three of her parents are probably frequently arguing about Charlie with each other, and it’s easy to feel invisible.

Her brother is suddenly using and being encouraged to use Her Special Name for Her Dad. Which unless it was Her Idea, and I have doubts anyone at 13 would go that fast to that while already feeling betrayed by one parent, when they suddenly have to share everything else, would lend to feeling even more invisible and not special in the middle of this sudden upheaval of her world specifically by her own Dad, too.  
It’s SUPER REALISTIC that she’d be acting out rebelliously and lying, specifically, to her mom in reaction to all of this. Wanting to both get out and away from all of it, and wanting to get any kind of attention that acknowledges her existences as important. 

**IV. Charlie Edwards**  
Let’s be real for a second here, okay? He did not become Charlie Williams the moment that reveal happened, and he’ll only become Charlie Williams when/if Rachel, Danny or Stan takes this to court (and, oh god, but they should). To boot, he is still being billed on IMDB as Charlie Edwards, rightfully. 

Also, at four years old, it would be super confusing to be told by three adults and his sister that his dad is no longer his dad, or never was his dad, or still is his dad even if he’s not really, and this person who is Grace’s other dad, who he probably does not know that well except in passing, is suddenly his dad and has a brand new name he should be calling him by, too. 

He should even, because of how young he is and how hard this would be to understand, be having small temper tantrums where he wants his Dad but adamantly does not mean Danny, because only one person has been his dad, there through all the good and bad, best and worst, things of his tiny short life of the last four years and that is Stan. 

Which makes it hard for me to believe that last hospital scene (as overly, amazingly cute and wonderful as it was, melting every bit of my heart the way it was supposed to). It’s kind of unrealistic in the upheavel. Unless they told Charlie back when Danny got told and they’ve been working up to this for a month and half, and once again it never happened because it all happened off screen. 

**V. Danny Williams**  
The man with a heart of gold that people just keep running the hell over with large cars with spiked tires. I love Danny, but we should be seeing a sharper, angrier, more hurt Danny than we are seeing at all right now. 

He lost four years with Charlie. He lost his entire little mini-family, second happily ever after in Jersey, not because Rachel was pregnant with Stan’s son but because Rachel made a judgment call that said she saw him as both an unfit parent and cop. Four. Years. Ago. And that she would never have told him about Charlie except that she’s now she needs Danny’s blood more than she needs Danny not to be Charlie’s Dad. 

We should be seeing tense phone calls with Rachel, and we should be coming up on Danny needing to take her to court for an official paternity test and then a court suit for a matching custody of Charlie, like Grace’s. 

~*~  
There’s so much rich story material in this choice they made, even if it was a bad choice and it discredited Rachel’s character into a fridge. If they decided they had to do it, they should at least be making use of the amazing stories that could be even side-implied from there, as existing and happening still. 

How any and all of them navigate it, both together and apart, and I had hoped that we would see Danny bring that up in the Danny  & Grace scenes, since it would have made sense. But. Alas. No. Because why would we ever be connecting logical storylines together even in the same episode. 

I just….wish. You know. 

#WhyCan’tIWriteThisShowForThem? 


End file.
